A Missing Saber
by debit13
Summary: After Diego announces he wants to leave the herd, an altercation between him and Manny causes him to reminisce back to his days with Soto and the tiger pack, and makes him question whether or not he should stay with the herd. Revised: 4/5/10
1. Inner Conflict

Note: I do not own Ice Age -- this is simply a story that deviates from the movie. All characters used from the movie retain their names.

* * *

**_I. Inner Conflict_  
**

"_...don't let my boring domestic life hit you in the butt on the way out."_

Talk between Manny and Diego was nonexistent ever since those bitter words were spoken. Manny's harsh words strongly resonated through Diego's mind; guilt was the only thing stopping him from taking his leave. Manny, Ellie, Sid, and the two possums were sound asleep, but Diego was still somewhat alert – his mind slowly drifted away.

After regaining attention from the minor daze, Diego slowly pushed his front legs forward while retaining the same position, a stretch of some sorts, before easing into a resting position. As he attempted to sleep, his mind continued to wander faster than he could keep up with.

"_...come on, Diego! Let's bring this mammoth down!"_

The words of Soto, Diego's former pack leader, began to enter his thoughts. To this day, leading the mammoth who saved his life to an ambush still made him feel like a traitor. Betraying his former saber pack did not make his thoughts sit any easier. Attacking Soto, taking the hit for Manny, seeing his old pack leader get killed - it all replayed so brightly in his mind. Diego awoke from his extremely short rest, conflicted within himself even more.

"Am I wrong for being what I am?" He asked himself. "Sabers shouldn't need to protect anything other than themselves or their pack."

_Or their friends. _

_Does Manny even appreciate me being here anymore? I feel like a ghost. What's the point of staying now if I'm not needed? _

_...but Ellie's expecting her baby...what if something happens to her or Manny? Manny can't handle protecting Ellie while trying to protect himself._

After a brief deliberation within himself, he quietly lifted himself to stand, and slowly traveled northward, away from the other mammals. His movement wasn't quiet enough to avoid the rustle of a pile of leaves, but it was stealthy enough for the entire herd to stay in their deep sleep.

Diego's trip did not last long - a few hundred paces and the saber's body began to demand sleep. His recurring memories had kept him awake for days; the fatigue was intolerable and simply too much for him to take. After scouting the area for a safe place to rest, he spotted a tree surrounded by an unkempt area of tall grass. Being fairly acclimated with the area around him, Diego was sure that he'd be safely hidden for the night.

_...Soto... _

Just the mention of Soto's name filled Diego with sadness. His mental anguish was slowly causing him to break down. The once unbreakable saber-tooth shed a tear, let out a sigh, then eased toward the tree.

He no longer wanted his mind to wander, but even he knew that it would happen in his sleep. Sound with that fact, Diego lied directly in front of the tree and made a second attempt to fall asleep. A few moments into his second trance, his mind carried him through another set of memories. The need for sleep had a tight grip on Diego, and he wouldn't be able to simply awaken from dreams of this clarity.

* * *

The previously blackened horizon had changed its complexion to a very dark blue. Sid – usually the last person to wake up, awoke to see his campfire still ablaze.

Sid grinned. "All hail fire-king."

He looked around to see what he thought was the entire herd still sound asleep.

After taking a moment to do his usual morning routine of cracking his back and stretching his short arms, he realized something was missing.

"Wait a minute."

Looking around again, he pointed out each of the animals.

"Mammoth, mammoth, possum, possum. Where's the sloth? There's no sloth – just fire-king."

Sid grinned once more before noticing that his fire had completely gone out, causing the over-confident sloth to frown. After thinking for a short moment, he finally accounted for who was missing.

Sid rushed over to Manny. "Manny! Manny – wake up! It's important!"

Manny slowly stood up before opening his eyes slightly to see that the sloth was on his tusks.

"Aaaah!" Slightly startled, Manny took a step back before stumbling back down onto his stomach. The heavy impact caused the other sleepers to yell, and awaken.

Manny gave Sid an almost vicious glare.

"Sid, if this happens to be another one of those nightmares involving you getting kidnapped by a tribe of mini-sloths, I will do the honors of personally pummeling you. Everyone, especially Ellie, needs to get their sleep." Manny angrily shook Sid off of his tusks.

Crash and Eddie jumped onto Ellie's tusks as Ellie walked over to Manny.

"Manny, Sid is part of the family too. If he has something to say, regardless of when it is, we should respect that. Everything alright, Sid?"

"See? Why can't you have a heart as big as Ellie's?" Manny dropped his head to Sid's level with an even bigger glare than before.

"Diego's not here!" Sid frantically yelled, trying to divert Manny's anger away from him.

Manny stood up again to search the immediate area only to notice that Diego was in fact separated from the rest of the herd. After desperately looking around, Manny's memory caught him for a split second.

"_...don't let my boring domestic life kick you in the butt on the way out." _

He stood motionless – his eyes widened and his face filled with sorrow. The entire herd stared at Manny in awe; they hadn't witnessed him give any sort of serious emotion for quite a long time.

Crash and Eddie jumped off of Ellie's tusks and immediately split up. The rest of the herd looked around for any sort of clues that might lead to where Diego might be. Almost immediately, Ellie found what the entire herd was looking for. After calling the herd to attention, she pointed to a crushed pile of dry leaves.

"They're just leaves, what good does that do?" Manny asked out of frustration.

"Manny, when we got here, the baby kicked. Remember?" Ellie knew relating to the baby would make Manny think more clearly; it was the only thing on his mind before noticing that one of his best friends had gone missing. After staring blankly at Ellie for a moment, he moved some of the leaves around and realized that this was the same pile of leaves he helped Ellie gather so she could rest after feeling the baby for the first time. A few of the leaves had short tears down the middle.

Crash walked up to one of the leaves, still somewhat confused.

"Does this mean Diego went this way?" He asked.

"Or...how do we know he was the one who came through here?" Eddie asked, a bit nervous.

After wondering about who or what could have possibly come through, the herd unanimously decided to sleep a bit closer together for the rest of the night.


	2. Past Choices

_**II. Past Choices**_

As Manny, Sid, Pinky, and Diego ventured during the snowstorm, Half Peak was within sight. Sid cradled the baby with his right arm, keeping it close to his body. Despite Sid's height, it was still tall enough to shield the infant from the bitter cold and biting snow. A few speckles of dirt on the baby's face caused Sid to disregard the weather and worry about cleaning.

"We don't want your parents to see you all ugly and stinky like this, do we?" Sid stuck his right forefinger and middle finger in his mouth and gently rubbed Pinky's face. The baby started to laugh before trying to push Sid's fingers away.

Manny lightly wrapped his trunk around Sid's hand to pull it away from the baby's face.

"Pinky's clean enough, let's keep moving so he can see his father again."

After taking a few paces forward, Sid held up the baby in Diego's direction.

"I think he looks like me, what do you think?" Diego stood silent and kept walking forward, looking at the upper rock pillars contained within Half Peak. Oscar, a member of Soto's tiger pack, was watching from above. As their eyes met for a moment, Oscar turned around and disappeared from sight. Diego held still as the other members of the herd slowly continued forward.

Manny realized that Diego hadn't been following behind.

"Diego, everything alright?" Diego remained motionless. His face had turned into a distinct frown, not one out of sadness, but out of guilt. His conscience momentarily took hold of him as he thought about the mammoth who saved his life, but he shook it off almost instantly.

_Instincts over emotions._ "I'm fine. Let's move – I'm freezing my tail off." Diego's face returned to its near emotionless expression as he led Manny and Sid past a stone pillar, marking the entrance to Half Peak.

The snow on the stone pillar partially blew off as the wind picked up. Manny took the baby from Sid and put it on his back so that he could ride without feeling the painful wind. Visibility began to diminish with every passing step.

"Half Peak is giving us a pretty...full, snowstorm, don't you think?" Sid squinted his eyes and began to wince in pain as the snow started to whip in his direction. Even Manny's enormous build wasn't enough to prevent the stinging sensation from the extreme weather conditions. Diego, also in pain, remained unfazed.

"How much longer until we reach the pass?" Manny asked impatiently, willing to do just about anything to rid himself from the harsh conditions.

"We're just about there." Diego replied, with an abnormally deeper, almost sinister voice. Almost on cue, four more tigers were in sight.

"...Diego...who are they?" Manny's voice started to show fear, and the other tigers were well aware of it. Diego continued to walk in the direction of the tiger pack, until he was directly in front of them. Then, he turned toward Manny, Sid, and the baby.

"...So?" Manny was confused.

Diego crouched into an attack position, and the tiger pack behind him followed his motion. The pack leader, Soto, stepped to the right of Diego.

"Now!"

Soto and Diego simultaneously leaped from their crouch positions towards Manny and Sid. They both flinched and retreated a few steps backward. Zeke, Oscar, and Lenny, the other three members of the tiger pack, began to swipe at the mammoth as he retreated. Pinky broke his silence with very loud cries of fear as Sid began to yell into the wind while also taking a few steps back.

As a feeble attempt to defend himself, Manny used his trunk to swing at the attacking tiger pack. Soto and Diego began to advance quicker as the frequency of the swipes by the other three tigers began to increase. It wasn't long before Manny, Sid, and the baby were backed into a pillar.

"Diego! Why!?" Manny was still in utter shock as Diego continued to step forward, emerald eyes glistening, sharp teeth showing.

"A short lesson that you, a naive mammal, will never appreciate...never trust a saber." Soto had spoken before taking a single swipe at the mammoth's leg. The pain was enough for Manny to lose his balance, and Pinky as well.

The painful impact with the heavy snow caused Pinky to cry once more, and it was only mere moments before Soto had grabbed the baby.

"Diego – finish the job." Soto charged out of sight with the baby, who was presumably going to be his fresh lunch. Diego crouched once more, and readied himself for his next jump.

"Goodbye...Sid. You...were a good friend." A tear had fallen out of Manny's left eye, knowing full well that this could be his final time to witness what life really was. Diego's growling became more audible, even through the heavy winds.

"Diego...you...were a really good guy." Another tear had fallen out of Manny's left eye, as he stared helplessly at his former friend. Diego stood up for a moment as if to ease from his attacking position. His conscience took over for a moment as he recalled the same mammoth saving his life the night before. Manny noticed the daze and took a second attempt at Diego by swinging his trunk. Diego's agility was too much for Manny, as he easily avoided the strike. He reset himself to the attack position, hesitating once more.

_Instincts over emotions. _He launched himself into the air and guided himself right to the mammoth's throat.

Diego let out a very loud snarl. All of the smaller animals around him jumped and fled out of fear. He realized that he was no longer attacking Manny, or even anywhere near Manny. His breathing was quite heavy, and he noticed that his heart was racing. The sky was a somewhat bright gray. To his surprise, he was still laying directly in front of the tree.

"_Diego...you...were a really good guy."_

"_...a really good guy."_

"Did I just...?"

Diego was in complete shock – he was able to recall what just happened, but unable to control it. Diego was drenched. Unsure as to whether it was him sweating profusely during the night, or him getting soaked by a heavy shower, he stood up and shook himself clean before noticing the carcass of a dead gazelle a few paces away from the tree. Diego took the few paces forward and examined the body. His paw landed in a small pile of blood – it wasn't dry. He put a paw on the gazelle's corpse to see, aside from the wound, that it was dry.

_The gazelle is dry, but the blood is still wet. Who would...? _Diego looked around for a quick moment to see patches of mud. One of them had distinct footprints.

_What else would be fast enough to chase down a young gazelle? Even I wasn't able to do that._

Pondering the situation, Diego looked at the small area of mud and lifted his paw. After a quick comparison, he was in awe.

_Other...sabers?_


	3. Journeys

_**III. Journeys**_

Diego was unsure as to how he should react to anything around him. His dream to kill his friends was beyond his control, and he most certainly would not wish harm to any of his friends under any circumstances. However, Diego's need to interact with more of his own kind certainly tugged at his mind as well.

"Any sort of communication would be nice…any sort of living mammals."

Despite that idea, he was also well aware of who he was. Diego was, and always will be, a saber – that was what he needed to talk to.

"Even if I do meet another pack of sabers…will I be able to hunt?" It wasn't very long for Diego to realize that his words were simply vanishing into the air around him.

_If I'm going to think about something, I might as well not talk about it. Might as well save my breath._

He took another glance at the prints. Coincidentally, Diego's idea of heading north was shared with whatever passed through and killed the gazelle.

_I am sure of it…almost 100% sure…maybe. I slept in front of the tree; I woke up in front of it._ His mind began to rant within itself.

_What would be the point of me following the tracks if there's a chance that I won't find anything at all? Whatever it is, it might be gone by now…_

He wasn't entirely confident about there being any sort of an animal presence in the direction of the tracks. Even so, Diego had no other choice but to follow them. He needed to come to a consensus with himself as to whether or not he would return to his former herd, or seek a new life – and he had to decide now.

…_another adventure wouldn't hurt, I guess._

Diego bolted out of the tall grass, wide awake and fully alert. If all it took was a bit of tracking to help settle a few uncertainties in his thoughts, it was worth it to him. He studied the tracks once more to make sure he was heading in the right direction, and shook his paws clean. Then, he started to walk north, keeping aware of his surroundings; his dreams, his conscience, and his current reality were more than enough for him to handle, and his state of mind wouldn't become any better revisiting Manny…or the rest of the herd.

* * *

A brisk wind was blowing. The sound of the dry leaves blowing in the air broke the silence around the herd. It was enough to bring Manny out of his sleep. Manny groaned as he adjusted to a standing position, lifting his large mass off of the ground. A few leaves fell on top of his tusks while he began to stand. After shaking them off, he began to move around. His heavy steps caused the ground to shake, causing Sid and the two possum twins to snap out of their already light sleep. Crash rushed away from the noise and moved to safety, as if he was in any danger.

Crash let out a short yell, unsure as to what was causing the occasional thud. He rushed back to the area where he was sleeping to find his brother.

"Eddie!" Before he could turn around to search further, a hand struck Crash behind the head. Eddie was directly behind him, giggling. Crash hit him back. After a quick glare from Eddie, the typical possum play-fight ensued. Sid giggled as they rolled around in the same area, grabbing tails and locking heads. The fight was quickly separated by Manny's trunk.

"Come on, you two – you aren't getting any stronger fighting with yourselves." Manny smirked knowing that what he said was honestly true. The possums put their heads down and started talking under their breath. Manny began to stir around in the area.

"Ellie…?" Manny took a look around to see that she wasn't in sight. A moment of confusion soon turned into an eternity of panic. The heavy footsteps began to occur more frequently as he frantically searched for his mate. Crash and Eddie headed in the opposite direction to help look, hearing Manny's panicked voice dim away as they began to separate themselves.

"Manny! We're not all as tall as you down here! Give me a lift!" Manny dropped his head for Sid to climb on it.

"You should be grateful that I'm not leaving you behind for Ellie."

"Oh, I'm sure everything will be fine. Before she met you, she spent her entire life thinking that she was a possum! And she made it just fi–." Manny stopped before Sid finished his sentence and glared upward. Sid stood silent.

Manny began to stir again out of panic.

While Crash kept running in the opposite direction, Eddie paused for a moment to think.

"…Ellie does like to go on her own sometimes." Eddie said to himself. "Maybe she went to find more clues?"

Eddie quickly turned around and went back toward Manny, who was moving erratically.

"Manny!" Eddie knew that his voice was a bit too small for Manny to hear when he was stirring around. He jumped onto Manny's tail, climbed up his mountain of a body, and got up to his ear.

"Manny – you of all people should know Ellie likes to do things on her own. Maybe she's looking for Di—"

A very high pitched shriek filled the silence. Crash turned back around.

"What the heck was that?" The scream not only surprised Crash, but frightened him as well. Oddly enough, he was usually the one who remained unfazed when it came to anything. Eddie stood motionless on Manny's head. No one knew who or what made that sound, but with Ellie not being in his site, Manny thought the worst.

"Eddie, get on, now."

"I'm Crash!"

"Just get on, will you!?" Crash didn't hesitate to jump on Manny's leg and climb onto him with that tone of voice. Manny began to walk once he felt Crash on his back.

Manny's slow walk quickly turned into a fast one as he tracked north, past the scattered pile of leaves they had found the night before. "She's got to be around here...anywhere!" Desperation began to set in, and it was clear in his voice. Crash and Eddie looked at each other with droopy faces, unsure as to where Ellie might be.

The speed of Manny's heavy steps began to increase as they ventured northward. He did not care to look in any other direction other than in front of him.

"Manny!" A voice came from behind him as he kept charging forward. Sid, Crash, and Eddie all jumped off Manny's back in response the voice. Manny charged a bit further before realizing that the mammals were no longer on his back.

"Manny, what's the rush?" Manny immediately turned around to the sound of the voice.

"Ellie, is everything alright? Are you hurt? Did you s–…" Manny's voice was quickly interrupted.

"I'm alright, I'm alright. It's you that I'm worried about. I yelled because of this…" She extended her trunk in the direction of a tattered gazelle carcass. The other mammals looked at the dead body for a moment before turning away in disgust. Sid walked closer to the dead gazelle before noticing something just in front of tall grass.

"Diego?" The herd turned to and walked toward Sid in unison, looking around. He pointed to an imprint within a patch of mud.

Ellie walked to the mud patch.

"Unph." She dropped her head and winced for a split-second. "These are tiger tracks alright."

"These footprints look a bit too light to be Diego's…it's only been a night since he disappeared." Manny wasn't quite sure what to think about the prints. "If there's any lead to follow, it's this one. We might as well start moving sooner than later." Manny began to follow the prints northward.

"Nuh-uh, I'm not walking the entire way. No way. You're my transportation." Sid grinned for a moment before trying to keep up with Manny, as his request was completely ignored. "Ellie!?"

"Oh, sweetheart, do you want a ride?" Ellie turned to Sid with a smile on her face. Crash and Eddie took advantage of the ride by hopping on Sid's small head.


	4. Imperfections

Author's Note: Pay attention to any lines through the story as they are being used to separate 3rd person memories from the actual story; these do play a decent role in emphasizing certain areas of the story and add a lot of imagery for everyone to picture. Other than this note, the story continues like the other chapters, so enjoy!

* * *

_**IV. Imperfections**_

While the footprints had no definitive track outside of the previous pool of mud, Diego felt like his tiger instincts would inevitably lead him to more of his kind. His decision to venture out into what he thought was an unknown would be more than satisfying if it had the potential to fill an emotional void.

_Is it worth it? _Diego often thought about whether or not the gazelle's execution was his doing and if he should have taken the trip away from the herd in the first place. Even if it was his kill, he wouldn't feel remorse for the gazelle's death, nor should he.

A typical saber would be proud for capturing their dinner…or their snack.

_A dead gazelle isn't any of my concern. However it happened doesn't matter, it's taking me where I need to go._

"Hey, maybe I can catch a meal soon."

Diego wasn't in a dire need to satisfy his hunger, although capturing his first snack in a while would be rewarding. Thoughts of a new meal frustrated him, as he reminisced back to his first previous gazelle capture.

"_Eat my dust, dingo!"_

Those words stung his confidence as a carnivore who was not only supposed to be able to hunt, but one that was expected to catch what is known as his prey. A realization of this caused Diego to deeply exhale before continuing northward. He slowly treaded over a very thin layer of dirt. Initially worried about covering his tracks, he glanced at the ground below him.

"No tracks. It's nice having less to think about."

Diego looked back up again and slowly moved in the same direction before one of his paws treaded over nothing but air. The minor imbalance was enough for Diego to lose his train of thought and his stability over the ground. He shifted his momentum backward and put himself into a sitting position. Shut eyes ready for an impact turned into opened ones as Diego remained still, unharmed and untouched. After taking a moment to regain equilibrium, he calmly scoped the area around him to be sure that he hadn't fallen out of line with where he needed to go. After a quick view of the scenery around him, his right ear flickered. There wasn't anything particularly odd or strangely out of place within his sight, yet his body released a shudder – an almost sixth sense, consumed his mind; yet Diego couldn't hone in on the danger or any sort of oddity that would cause such a distraction within him. Unsure about what was bothering him, he decided to lift himself. Lingering in one area would never do Diego good; he'd learned this lesson after losing half of his pack; his predecessors; his family, to a group of humans. The bitter memories of his past began to pierce him deeper than daggers through fur, like claws from his own kind.

Not another second had passed before Diego regrouped his thoughts. Focusing on his steps was of utmost importance as future lapses of judgment may prove to be more serious, or fatal – even to a young and cunning saber. A second wind took over Diego as he opted to make up for any sort of lost time; concentration was all that mattered to him, and his past couldn't be the reason for him to avoid progressing in his life.

_Gotta move. Any time spent thinking about my own self-being is time wasted. _If it took the rest of Diego's life to find satisfaction within him, it was worthwhile.

Diego eased over to where he had lost his balance. The ground below his feet had in fact ended; he'd reached the cliff's end, but there was always the opportunity to go around. Silence filled the air as he pondered what to do now.

"Great." A growing impatience soon turned into frustration. What was thought to be an easy and short adventure played out more like a conquest in disguise.

"Perfect." Diego turned his tail to the open sky and stepped forward in the opposite direction, knocking an earthy mass off the ground and letting it trickle downward. His right ear fluttered once more; somewhat sure of the contact sound at the cliff base, Diego dashed back to the edge of the cliff and lied down, face at the edge of the cliff. With a slight grin on his face, he knocked over a comparatively smaller rock. With the area around him being generally silent aside from the occasional howl of the wind, the sound would easily resonate through his ears. A dull moment passed before the small stone reached the bottom; it was a considerably lower fall than first expected. A normally inaudible sound was as clear as crystal to the saber – Diego could distinguish anything coming into contact with a body of water after the frantic rescue of the two possum twins, even a body slamming into it after hitting a patch of ice head-first.

"Ha. Good old Sid." Diego looked up at the sky with a somewhat suppressed smile as he began reminiscing back to the moment where he considered breaking his fear of water.

* * *

_"But the point is...fear is natural." _Sid made an attempt to reason with Diego, but a saber will never submit to anything, let alone admit a fear that they shouldn't have.

Diego dropped his face to Sid's and gave him a menacing, almost threatening look as he wanted to make sure his words would keep Sid from making any sort of rebuttal.

_"Fear...is for prey."_ Confident that his words would be enough to keep Sid's mouth closed, he turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction; however, Sid was determined to get through to the stubborn tiger, even if it meant harming his ego as an all-powerful carnivore.

_"Then you're letting the water make you its prey!" _A smile stood out on Sid's face knowing that he bruised the "fearless" saber's ego.

* * *

No tiger, whether it be a saber or a scimitar, an alpha of the pack or the runt, would ever want a noticeable flaw; a single imperfection was enough to bruise them emotionally, and was grounds for physical retaliation. Diego was no different; he was quite a secluded tiger, even as second-in-command of the former saber pack. Regardless, he still had emotional standards. Sid's words that night, stuck with Diego permanently – him still being among the living was a memento of that night; of all mammals to give him lifesaving advice, it had to be a sloth that was one-eighth of his size.

The breeze blew from behind Diego's small ears as he continued staring out into the dimly blue-lit sky. Despite the time he'd longed for any sort of companionship, the problem-free time that he had to himself eased stress he'd been dealing with. However, Diego understood his priorities.

_I have to go now._ Taking the side trail was no longer an option and the water would definitely break the moderately-high fall. He stared down into the quietly flowing body of water; Diego wasn't afraid of the water but the last thing he wanted to do was soak himself, especially if a shorter way around the trail was possible.

"Looks like I have no other options." With no other routes within eyeshot, Diego rolled his eyes and casually leapt off of the cliff and into the water.

The body of water didn't simply break his fall – it had submerged him. Head below water, Diego fought his way back to the surface. He'd experienced the pain of fighting deep water before; the loose water like spikes in his eyes, his lungs burning from denial of oxygen, and the slimy feeling of a drenched coat. A huge breath of air entered Diego's lungs upon reaching the surface, to cool the intense heat in his chest from the lack of it. He found himself beneath the surface once more, unable to hold himself above the stagnant pool of water. While fear to sabers was indeed for prey, it took an extreme amount of self-confidence and bravery to stare into the eyes of death and not flinch. Diego's heart began pulsating harder and faster as he struggled up to the surface for a second time, gasping for air as he desperately moved the water around him to find some sort of balance – a moment later, he fell again. He recognized the situation he was in; he couldn't simply fight, he had to work with his problems. Panic began to set in as Diego's vision slowly began to fade into another recollection.

* * *

"_Just jump in and trust your instincts!" _Sid jumped off of a tree branch head-first into a pile of leaves, using it as a visual aquatic playground.

"_You know, most animals can swim as babies, and for a tiger, it's like crawling on your belly…to stalk helpless prey." _Sid climbed another tree branch, mimicking a predator-like movement to swim.

Diego turned his back to the illustration before Sid reappeared to his right with a vine wrapped to his chest. Diego not only grew irritated, but annoyed as well as Sid started to circle around him.

"…_but faster, okay? Now claw; kick. Claw; kick. I'm stalking the prey…claw, kick; now, I look back over my shoulder to see if I'm being followed." _He continued to circle around Diego, whose eyes thinned with every passing motion.

"…_and I'm breathing!" _Sid let out a few exaggerated gasps of air as he continued to circle around.

"…_and I'm stalking…and I'm stalking…" _Diego's face drew away from Sid as he waited for him to finish one more rotation around him before cutting the vine with his sharp claws.

* * *

A sharp pain in Diego's chest brought him out of his mind and back into reality; he'd been submerged for a fair amount of time and now, he regained consciousness at the bottom of the body of water.

"_Claw…kick." _The two words replayed in his mind over and over again; his survival would rely on this concept. Suddenly, Diego's eyes thinned as he glared into the eyes of pain.

Diego's tiger-like instincts completely masked any sort of fear that was left within him; he'd conquered aquatics once before and a watery grave was not in his immediate future. The lack of oxygen was more painful than knives puncturing through his body, but he did not care. He could feel the pain, but he completely masked it.

_You are not my predator, and I am NOT your prey. _Diego crouched at the bottom of the river and leapt straight upward toward the surface of the water; the immense strength within his legs pushed him half of the distance between the surface and the floor. Four lunges later, he arrived at the surface of the water, completely unfazed and operating on adrenaline; a normally exaggerated gasp for air to any other nearly-drowned mammal was nothing more than a calm, almost confident breath to a fully-concentrated Diego.

"_Claw…kick." _A focus so great loomed over Diego, the loose water piercing through his eyes was nothing more than a minor distraction as he swam his way to the land. As his destination became nearer, so did his vision; he continued at his almost rushed pace to the shoreline despite the blurring eyesight. Each passing stroke brought him closer to safety, and even closer to danger; Diego's body slowly began to shut down as he pushed himself to dry ground.

Diego's claws hit the ground while his head was still above water; he'd reached dry land, with the sky a darker shade of blue. His head was pounding as hard as his heart was, while his vision was a blur. He staggered forward to what looked like a green-colored area; nothing was distinguishable beyond sounds of his own body. After a few steps forward into what he thought was high grass, he heard nothing more than his heartbeat – colors faded to gray as Diego could no longer hold himself up, and gray faded to complete darkness as his body slammed onto the ground.

* * *

**********

Crash and Eddie were running atop and around Sid's back as he gripped on to Ellie's thick coat. Although his claws were decently sharp, and deep into Ellie's fur, she didn't mind it at all. Oddly enough, the possums' unrest was more of a distraction than Sid was.

"Will you two knock it off? I can get my laughs without you two running all over me." Ellie's speech was uneven, being occasionally interrupted with forced laughter.

"Listen to your mo--…sister, guys; you two are going to be uncles soon." The two possum brothers stopped in their tracks with straight and somewhat scared faces; Manny knew while this made them feel bigger and more responsible, the reality would make cringe from head to toe. The herd traveled along the trail parallel to the imprinted tiger tracks, hoping that their carnivorous friend was headed in the same direction. Manny, moving the swiftest out of the group, suddenly stopped to address Sid; he was oddly quiet the entire duration of the trip.

"Sid, everything okay? I mean, nothing wrong with you being silent and all…" Ellie immediately stopped and glared back at her mate.

"…but every once in a while your voice is nice to hear." He turned himself away from Ellie who broke her glare and gave a smile back to him. The two possums laughed at the obvious fib for a moment before Manny turned to silence them with a glare of his own.

"Everything is fine and dandy!" Sid stood up on top of Ellie before losing his balance and falling on her head. Something about Sid's response didn't fit with Manny; Sid had a strange way with vocabulary but it sounded extremely forced, as if to be cloaking other inner feelings. Ellie not only picked up on the strange reaction to Manny's question, but also his recent behavior; before Diego's disappearance, Sid would always linger near Ellie as if the baby were going to arrive in the world at the exact moment he was around. Aside from Sid riding on top of her, that almost protective attitude suddenly disappeared.

"Sid…you can tell us if something's wrong." Ellie very gently wrapped her long trunk around Sid and pulled him in front of her. Ellie, typically the happiest, and quite possibly most sane mammal in the herd, had a worried face of her own. Sid started chuckling a bit before dropping his head and planting his knees the floor. The entire herd had not been witness to a quiet, reserved Sid; they all moved next to each other and stood silent all staring at the sloth, wondering what kind of reaction to expect next.

Sid's shadow represented the back of his body; the front was gently illuminated by the slowly dimming dark blue sky. The dry ground below Sid's knees darkened with a drop meeting with the floor – the entire herd noticed and heard it. Everything around them was ominously silent; deep exhales could be heard from each mammal as they watched their once joyful friend on his knees. Crash and Eddie left from Ellie's back and stood in front of Sid, staring at the emotionally broken sloth, unsure of what to say; they were well aware of the things they normally said and silently came to a consensus, to keep silent.

"I never thought...that..." Sid's words were interrupted by a frequent sniffle, or a moment of silence. None of the stares broke away from Sid, but the possum twins came up to Sid and put their arms around his body.

"…I…would grow attached…to something that nearly killed me." The entire herd dropped their stares in recognition of what Sid was talking about. Manny and Ellie came up closer to Sid as they all took a moment to rest.

"Sid – why didn't you say anything?" Ellie continued forward to Sid before stopping for a moment, squinting her eyes and dropping her head, catching Manny's attention.

"Ellie, everything alright? What's wrong? Is it the baby?" His pace of speech had picked up considerably. Ellie rolled her eyes toward him as an attempt to indicate that she was alright.

"I'm fine, Manny. You worry too much." Ellie hid the pain in her stomach from Manny. She was well aware that her birth was imminent, but the last thing she wanted was to have an over-protective mate to lose sight of the reason why they were out there in the first place.

"Sid?" Ellie glanced back at Sid, who hadn't moved. Sid lifted his head in response to Ellie's voice, teary-eyed, but not quite clearing out his eyes anymore. He then stood up, and lightly rubbed his claws to the opposite arm, cleaning himself off. All of the mammals dropped their blank stares and put their minds together, thinking about all of the good times they had with their friend.

"We were holding on to Sid in the meltdown…but in the end it was Diego who saved all three of us." Eddie stared down to his feet, guilty for taking Diego's presence for granted before the sudden disappearance.

"He couldn't even put his paw in a puddle of water, that's all I remember." Sid was still talking very slowly; depression was clear to everyone else.

Crash climbed on top of Sid, and stood on his head. "It didn't help that you hit your head on ice mid-dive."

He jumped on Sid's head at the end of the sentence to emulate the impact of the dive. Even Sid put a smile on his face after understanding why he had very little to no recollection of that event. Ellie put her trunk near Sid's head as a signal to the possums to climb back up onto her.

"You know…" Manny began speaking to grab the rest of the herd's attention.

"Diego is such a lonely tiger, but he's also a great friend." Ellie, Sid and the two possums all nodded, agreeing that Diego's presence, while not a big one, was a necessary one.

"Without him, none of us would be here. He was so confused, and to this day he still might be, but he's always done things for the right reasons." The entire herd began to slightly scatter apart in front of Manny, getting ready to rest as night began to fall. Fatigue began to set in to the entire party; they opted to rest where they were as it was a fairly desolate area.

"He went out of his way to betray his family…only to stay with us." Manny's head faced the floor for a moment before he continued. "He…took a hit from his leader, to save my life…and I will never forget that."

* * *

As Manny began to get pushed back into a corner, the other three tigers of the saber-tooth tiger pack began to swipe near his massive feet. Diego had nearly been incapacitated from the pack leader, Soto – and his unrelenting strength. Manny arrived with a boulder as tall as he was, back to the stone. He flailed his trunk as an attempt to divert any attacks, but Soto was much too nimble to strike. Soto crouched in preparation of a leap as Diego stared helplessly at his mammoth friend. Diego caught a final wind of energy as Soto took his leap and leapt in front of Manny to take the nearly fatal hit.

* * *

"I never knew Diego had done so much for you guys." Ellie stared at Manny's eyes as they slightly watered up. "Diego's a really good friend but I was never able to see too much of him. He was always quiet…shy, even."

"Well, I hope you get to see Diego when he is at his best. He'll fight for his friends until he has wasted every last ounce of energy he has. I know this from experience." Ellie had never heard Manny speak as seriously as he did then. Sid was still sitting down, very saddened by the fact that he may never see one of his best friends again.

Manny looked around to see everyone asleep aside from Sid, who was now sitting down rather than being on his knees.

"Sid." Manny walked up to him to give him some words of encouragement, something that he was not used to giving to Sid.

"Manny, if you're going to tell me something about how I stink worse than—" Sid was quickly interrupted by Manny's voice; he'd never interrupted Sid in the middle of demeaning himself.

"You told me something…after the meltdown, which stood with me forever. I think it would be useful for you to take your own advice." Sid stared blankly at the mammoth, confused.

"Before we started on our travels together as one big group, you told me that I had to forget about the past, so that I could have a future. Now I know this won't be the most relieving thing that you'll hear in the next couple of days, but I'm going to tell it to you like it is. Diego might not be coming back." Sid's face dropped to the floor again.

"But, you are the life of this herd. You brought us together, and as much fun as it is to pick on you, we still need someone to make everyone laugh when we're at our worst. That person, is you, Sid. You make silly mistakes, you're clumsy, and I will not lie – your small problems bring a smile to everyone's face." Sid looked back up to Manny's face and put a smile on his face, showing to Manny that he could be happy even when times are rough.

"Get some sleep – we'll keep looking tomorrow; believe me, we'll do anything in our power to find Diego."

* * *

**********

Diego's body shutdown, thankfully, wasn't a permanent one. The repercussions of using every ounce of energy to keep himself alive from that near-disastrous encounter with water began to emerge after he looked up to see where he had landed. He had no recollection of how he made it out of the water alive, but he wasn't about to argue that fact. His heart began racing simply upon standing up and he was quite nauseous after moving less than a few feet in front of him. Diego dropped to a prone position and stood in that position for a moment to gather his energy; while he was well aware that he still had a job to do, he wasn't sure if venturing out alone was the best idea.

Diego looked around and noted a very familiar landscape – the mountainous area ahead of him looked extremely familiar even with the lack of snow; the entrance to the area had a tall stone pillar marking entry into the new terrain. His mind was now set on simply heading north until he found something or ran into a dead end. His skills as a tracker would easily lead him back to where he needed to be if the future yielded no results, and regardless of what happened, he would have at least an ounce of satisfaction knowing that he made an attempt to better himself – he made an attempt to break his seclusion.

He had let himself rest for a moment, unwillingly succumbing to his fatigue. His lack of physical exercise did not help make a recovery any easier.

_Have...to move._ Diego was very slow to lift himself off of the ground, making sure none of his motions were too strenuous; a normally weak strain could cause substantial damage in the condition that he was in. He began to limp over before something caught his vision. Diego blinked his eyes a few time to be sure his vision wasn't deceiving him – a young gazelle, eating some thin leaves stood a long distance. The thought of fresh food nearly caused Diego to salivate. He dropped his position to sneak around the unaware gazelle. He crept around a few trees to parallel himself to the gazelle, and then crouched from where he was to prepare for a large pounce. His ears dropped and a heavy snarl came from under his breath before leaping out of the bushes only to find himself pounce just short of a second gazelle. The frightened gazelle dashed away from Diego as he gave a fierce chase – Diego did not let the gazelle get too far as he shortened the distance between them; he passed the stone pillar as he gave chase. Within a few moments, the distance between the two animals was short enough for Diego to pounce; he lodged his claws directly into the neck of the caught gazelle, killing it instantly. His appetite was just as big as the boost in confidence he had received. Diego dug into the meat of the freshly killed animal and took a large bite, with an evil smile. Diego turned away from the gazelle and was greeted with a claw straight to the face. It drew blood just below the nose; his natural reaction was to physically retaliate, that is, until he viewed the face of the animal who struck him.


	5. Alpha

_**V. Alpha**_

Blood trickled down from below Diego's nose to the floor. He'd dropped his face in reaction to the impact, and gave off an increasingly audible snarl, still able to suppress any impulse involving a physical attack. As Diego slowly picked his head to level with the other animal that put claws on him, he viewed the animal from their toes up. Looking at the paws alone, Diego recognized that the animal who struck him was in fact, one of his own kind. But why? What would motivate a tiger to attack one of their own? He continued to stare up the unknown tiger's body before being distracted by its voice.

"You've gotten quite soft. A snarl isn't going to make an animal bigger than you scurry away."

Diego's growling intensified for a moment before dimming away as he looked at the tiger, face to face. The tiger had a dark orange coat with a white undercoat, and was very well built. It also had hair distinctly protruding outward in the facial area, similar to Diego's face. After hearing the very familiar voice and eyeballing each individual feature of the still tiger, Diego stood motionless -- unsure of what to say. He had put a name to the face but wasn't entirely confident in his decision, that is, until he caught a glimpse of the tiger's right side of his body. Five sharp distinct scars, covered an area from the lower part of the neck to the shoulder; it was clear to Diego who he was currently associating with. His previous dreams told him to feel remorse for his former leader, but a slash to the face was not a well-received welcoming. After noticing the injuries, Diego readied himself to speak with a malicious intent, ready to strike if need be.

"I have to hand it to you..." Diego looked at the other tiger's eyes, as it seemed unfazed by what began as a compliment.

"...Soto..." Diego spat out the name in disgust.

"...it's nice to see a _leader_ who can _lead_ in so many situations. You led your half of your family to get killed by humans, you led a failed attack clearly out of revenge, and nearly led yourself to your grave. I must say, you did a _great_ job _'leading'_." Emphasis was obvious sarcasm as Diego grinned after voicing his thoughts; Soto's shortened his eyes and gave a menacing glare while giving a threatening growl, while Diego sat with a smirk on his face, waiting for the inevitable retaliation. Members of the same tiger pack generally gave each other respect based on their rank in the pack, meaning the leader always received utmost respect for anything they had done, regardless of the consequences that followed. Implications of disrespect were never taken lightly; Diego knew this quite well being the beta of his former tiger pack, only below the tiger who stood one foot in front of him.

"I knew it was better not to trust you. Do you think I would send someone I trusted off to find an infant?" Soto launched himself at Diego; the heavy impact caused them to roll together in unison before they reset to their attack positions.

"Child's play." Soto grinned at how far he had relocated his target as Diego stood back up, indifferent toward the surprise tackle.

"You're pretty strong. Now try hitting me when I actually stand my ground." Diego didn't move a muscle from his position. The strike initially caught him off-guard, but the ferocity was noticeably different. Soto's once insurmountable strength as a leader had faded away with isolation and injury; Diego's confidence skyrocketed knowing that he could actually put up a fight against his former leader.

"We were family, Diego." Diego stared right into the eyes of his former leader; normally, he would show absolutely no emotion to Soto, whether it be happiness for praise, or sadness for a defeat. Even through the roughest of times and toughest of situations, Diego always had at least an ounce of respect towards his leader. While most would be overcome with joy upon acceptance into a family, Soto's previous words combined with the mention of family enraged Diego beyond control. Any respect that existed between them two had disappeared with the mention of family. Diego's face became solid like stone as he casually took a few steps forward; he was filled with pure anger but maintained his composure as he stepped forward.

"What family...you would send your own brother out to do _your_ plans of revenge?" Diego leaped toward Soto at full force; pinning him down to the floor. He lifted his right paw while keeping him held down with his left, and extended his claws toward the trapped tiger, scratching him across the forehead. The brisk wind combined with a newly opened sore caused Soto to growl loudly; he violently stirred under Diego, causing the grip to break free. They both stood at attention, strafing counter-clockwise in a circular pattern, waiting for each other's next attack.

* * *

The sun gleamed through the thin clouds not only brightening the area around the herd, but also offering a soothing warmth around them. Ellie was unable to sleep long with the constant pain from an imminent mammoth's birth; despite the almost sedating air radiating from around them, Manny was able to wake from his slumber. He turned to where Ellie was sleeping to make sure she was still there, and then smiled. Ellie flopped her trunk from Manny's direction back to her body, signaling her to come near her. Although a bit groggy, he knew better than to not refuse. Manny took his trunk, gently rubbed near Ellie's stomach and smiled brightly. Ellie forwarded her trunk and affectionately wrapped it around her mate's for a moment, before separating and asking Manny about his past.

"You know...you never told me the story of how you all became such good friends."

"Who?"

"You and Diego, and Sid for that manner. You told me something last night about how he would fight until the end for someone he cares about?" Ellie was somewhat saddened by the fact that she too, took his presence for granted; she wanted to know how an animal as fierce as a tiger seamlessly fit into a family such as their own. Manny let off a deep sigh and turned away from her, realizing that rehashing some of the past may change her opinion of Diego not only as a friend, but also a guardian. His eyes soon met back with Ellie's as he was reluctant to delve back into the past.

"I just want you to judge Diego the way he is now; not for what I'm going to tell you." Ellie grew more confused by each passing moment, but Manny did not break his face from her.

"I'll listen."

"Diego's past isn't exactly the cleanest..." Manny found himself struggling to tell Ellie some of the things Diego had to do under another saber's lead. He looked upward into the white-blue sky.

"...I'll start by saying that his plans didn't involve me and Sid, at first. I won't go into too much detail with Sid...other than saying he needs to watch himself around animals much bigger than him." Ellie giggled knowing that Manny's inner demeanor was a nice and caring one, one that saved her life once before.

"Sid started following me, probably because he knew he wouldn't become lunch if he did."

"Manny, that's not a n--." Manny challenged Ellie to say different by giving her a almost serious stare. She tried to keep a straight face, but chuckled almost immediately. Manny took the moment to laugh alongside of her mate.

"That's not a nice thing to say!" She continued snickering as Manny tried easing the laughter to continue telling the story.

"But you know it's true. Anyway, on our travels, a human had drifted in the through a river, with a baby. It was almost like...a last request. She put the baby on the shoreline away from herself. I looked at the mother, and then put my attention on the baby for a moment. When I peeked back up at the river's edge, the mother was gone."

"So you took the baby?" Manny didn't know how to respond to this, as it was Sid's idea to have the infant tag along.

"I'll be honest with you, I didn't want to take the baby." Manny knew full well that this would shock Ellie; he'd been protecting her and watching over her as much as physically possible because of a baby.

"At the time, I didn't even want Sid by me. But Sid seemed so overly determined to get the baby back to its family -- he was going to try and climb an entire cliff with the kid in his arms. In fact, he was surprising me for a moment, getting about halfway up...but then the baby fell out of Sid's grip." Ellie continued to stare blankly at Manny, visually imagining the past times, word for word.

"I was about to catch it with my trunk. While I didn't want the baby to tag along with me, I wouldn't want it to suffer any sort of pain either. So, the baby is falling and I'm readying myself to catch it, and then...Diego, out of nowhere, leaps in the air and grabs the baby in his mouth. I know he didn't want to eat the baby, I found that out later. I won't dig into that because it isn't important. Obviously, at this time, we didn't know each other. I hit him hard with my trunk and the baby went flying out of his mouth and into my trunk."

"You hit Diego?" It came to Ellie's attention that they didn't befriend one another immediately.

"Well, how often do you see a tiger grab anything smaller than itself not do anything bad?"

"I wouldn't know being that Diego was the only tiger ever around me, and he was...nice." Ellie frowned again realizing that she never lent an ear for Diego to talk into.

"His family, wasn't quite as understanding. Diego, Sid and I started traveling in hopes of meeting the kid's father. Along the way, we took two breaks. The first time we stopped, I wasn't sure what to expect spending the night with a tiger, so I lightly slept. Diego looked to be sound asleep as well, so I didn't think anything of it. The following morning, the baby was gone."

"Diego didn't take the baby, otherwise you two probably wouldn't be together right now." Ellie's inference was indeed accurate, they stood together as a herd for quite sometime, unaware of the previous problems Diego had lived through.

"Sid took the baby somewhere, apparently he found a few sloths that liked him. But when I took the baby back, the other sloths left too. I don't entirely know what happened, but the next time I found Diego, he had Sid in his mouth."

"Diego tried to _eat_ Sid?" Manny pushed his trunk to Ellie's mouth as her words were considerably louder than before. All of the other mammals shifted around, but continued drifting aimlessly in their sleep.

"He spit him back out, who knows where that sloth could have been. Besides, you promised you wouldn't judge him!"

"That was before I found out that he tried to eat one of our family; he's got some nerve."

"That was in the -- look, let me explain to you how we grew as friends." Ellie wasn't fond of Sid nearly becoming a hungry tiger's lunch.

"We kept traveling toward Glacier Pass, which is where Diego and I both where the father would be. Sounds chilly, doesn't it? Well, we were passing along a snowy area...and long story, short, it was essentially melting below our feet."

"Like the meltdown?" Ellie felt like she could relate to the situation being the survivor of a near-apocalyptic natural disaster.

"Essentially might be the wrong word. Let's try...literally. There was a pool of lava erupting below us. We were walking through and the snow started melting around us. I shot Sid across with my trunk because he was absolutely terrified, going as far as running in his own place.

"So, you all shared a moment where you all had to work together? Sounds like a great way to make friends with each other." Ellie began to smile thinking that the conversation was over.

"Well, I shot Sid pretty far when I hit him with my trunk, he was perfectly safe sitting where he was. Diego stood back for a bit too long and had to reach us by doing a jump of his own. Funny thing though..." Manny began to grin for a moment.

"...it was the one time I could say that I sensed fear coming from him. He was rushing me, telling me to move faster."

"Diego did seem like the leader type though...when the ground was collapsing below all of our feet, I remember him telling us what we needed to do...like locking trunks." Ellie nudged her trunk over to Manny's again and wrapped it around for another brief moment of affection.

"The snow in front of us disappeared and we both had to make a jump. I made the jump without too much of a problem, but the gap turned huge. I didn't even realize what was going on until I noticed Diego wasn't directly behind me...he was hanging on for dear life on the edge of the gap. By that time, I felt like Diego and I were good friends, we had gone through a few side tracks together and there was something there. I wasn't going to leave him behind."

"That's so brave of you." Manny, caught in the moment, continued talking past the compliment. Ellie didn't seem to mind as it had been the most he'd talked in a while without mentioning the incoming baby.

"So I slowly moved across the snow and ice, moving closer and closer to him when ground below him collapsed. I threw my trunk out there and wrapped it around his paw. He wanted to get out of there as badly as I did, so he put his claws into the middle of my trunk." Ellie came up next to Manny's trunk and examined it; the scars from that ordeal, still mildly visible, served as a trophy to him and Diego still living.

"It really stung, and my next reaction was to toss him off of my trunk and into safety. So I whipped him toward Sid's direction and got him off of me. The ground then collapsed below me and sent me toward the lava." As Manny talked more in depth about how Diego and Sid became part of the herd, Sid broke out of his sleep and decided to listen along.

"Wait, nuh-uh. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you survived falling into a river of lava?" The story started to seem a bit more farfetched than first planned, but lucky for Manny, the witness to all of these events had migrated over, and listened.

"Manny did survive a fall into a river of lava, but he had the help from some hot water and steam." Sid joined in the storytelling circle as Ellie remained perplexed to the situation.

"A geyser shot me up into the air and back on to land." Manny was somewhat embarrassed.

"And pretty hard, I might add. I wasn't sure if Manny was even alive to begin with." Sid tapped Manny on the shoulder, receiving a glance of presence before moving on.

"I think that was when Diego realized that he had someone who cared about him. But what I'm about to tell you is something Diego probably regrets ever going through, for more than one reason. You promised you wouldn't judge him." Manny looked back at Ellie who had a worried look on her face. She nodded back to her mate as he went on.

"We reached an area just before Glacier Pass, in fact, it's just ahead of us. Diego mentioned it being called Half-Peak. When we got there...he didn't want to go anywhere. He told us that his plans were to ambush me and Sid, and to take the baby too." To Manny's surprise, Ellie didn't seem fazed by this newly revealed side of Diego, but on the inside, she was infuriated with the fact that he had plans to kill them at first.

"I had plans of just fighting through with Sid and beating the other tigers, but he said that the pack was too strong. He told me to trust him, for what he thought would probably be the last time -- and I did."

"Diego is quite the smart cat, he told me to hide the baby somewhere and then made me lead the tigers with a fake baby to Manny." Manny dropped his foot in disapproval and rolled his eyes at the poor description of an irrelevant event that happened, causing the two possum twins to wake up.

"As Diego signaled for us to leave the peak, his pack leader showed up. Both of them started advancing toward me. That was the one and only time in my mind where I regretted trusting Diego, but...he turned toward his leader and gave him a warning to back off."

"Wow! Diego turned his back on his leader?" Crash hopped excitedly.

"He fought...with his leader. His leader tossed him like a rag doll into a rock and knocked him out cold. Somehow though, he was able to wake up and throw himself in front of me when his leader tried going for my neck, to kill me. He took the hit, for me. When I said that Diego would fight for you until he could not breathe anymore, I wasn't kidding." Manny put his face down in shame, replaying the harsh words he gave to his best friend two days earlier like a broken record; essentially giving Diego the clear to walk out anytime he felt was necessary. Ellie was frozen with shock and emotion; the potpourri of feelings poured out from her heart but yet, she found herself unable to shed a tear. Manny sat up with a frown on his face, and while Sid and the possum twins weren't entirely surprised as Ellie, they all shared the same understanding.

"Sid brought the baby within sight, but the cry of the baby caught the leader's attention. So, I launched my trunk to him, and knocked him into a boulder. Last thing I remember was some icicles falling on him and that was the end of it. The other tigers of the pack ran off. Diego was still on the floor, barely moving. We all talked one last time, and stood with him until he shut his eyes. Sid and I thought that was the end of it. The child made it back to his father, and the father gave me some sort of bracelet that, until this day, I don't know what happened with. Sid and I planned on heading south when Diego came back and met up with us. He went out of his way to be with us, had one single problem that we could have worked out, and all I had to say about it was to not let my domestic life hit him on the way out." The warm and sedative air slowly replaced itself with a chilly sadness, causing everyone to get an occasional shudder. Diego was in fact the one who conquered his fears just to save mammals he hadn't known for more than two days. The group of animals that considered Diego a family came to a grim agreement that they may never see him again; the presence of the herd was no longer completed without the shadow of a missing saber.

"Ma--", Ellie stopped mid-word in reaction to more pain coming from the unborn child. All of the mammals were now aware of Ellie's labor being imminent.

"We need to find Diego before we never see him again." Eddie immediately stood up and broke his silence.

"We can't go with you about to have the baby, Ellie." Manny's typical over-protective nature caused him to worry; it was well justified fear as he wanted to be the father of a perfect healthy child.

"Manny...you said Half-Peak was just ahead?" Ellie's voice was heavily restrained by the intolerable pain. "We can make it."

* * *

A highly flammable air loomed over the two sabers, with resentment being the catalyst. Diego and Soto pushed deeper into the atrium of Half-Peak, shifting directions near a cliff's edge ever so often to keep each other unpredictable. One of the pack members, Oscar, returned from his daily hunt to see a tiger he hadn't seen in a fair amount of time. The current co-leader of the pack held a deep jealousy toward Diego; his cocky attitude would typically set the normally serious Diego into an irritated state, and Oscar always felt that he was more deserving of second-in-command. After getting a fairly long glance of the traitor to his kind, Oscar bolted towards Diego and attempted to tackle using all of the momentum picked up in his dash. A new contender in the middle of a fight involving morals and the past was not something that sat with Diego; he almost instantly broke the grip that Oscar had, who was clearly the weaker of the two sabers. Diego unpinned himself from Oscar's feeble grip. Ideas crossed his mind to counteract with an attack of his own until Oscar momentarily addressed Soto.

"You need help with this waste of fur?" Diego's face lowered and his ears peeled back, ready to lash after the disrespectful words, but he chose not to drop to that level. Instead, he aimed much lower, in an effort to not only bruise Soto's ego, but also to even the playing field in a battle. A tiger's ego meant everything; most never considered it wise to challenge a carnivore as strong as a tiger in a battle, other than another tiger fighting for position in a pack. However, with Diego being an exile to this pack, he had absolutely nothing to lose.

"Oscar, you couldn't beat me even if Soto threatened your life." Diego was well aware that he passed the line of disrespect. Oscar was never one to show an angry face, but Diego read the concealed anger like the fear from his prey, and had a feeling that an impulse would get the better of him. No sooner than Diego's train of thought brought him back to staring at his old pack member, Oscar was in mid-air. Diego nonchalantly side-stepped, expecting nothing more than a breeze of wind passing to his right. He continued to address Soto.

"Oscar can't lay a finger on me, and neither can you. It's a shame that your strength was once unsurpassed. You tossed me into a rock like if I was a helpless mammal, but now, I can put you beneath my paws and hold you down." Neither tiger was appreciative of the sheer confidence Diego was carrying, but that didn't stop him from talking.

"The funny thing about it all, is that I left my herd...my _herd_, not tiger pack, because I couldn't keep up with a young gazelle." The two sabers turned around and teased him as he said this, but he used their attempt of an insult as one of his own.

"Laughing at me only makes you look worse, because neither of you couldn't drop a tiger who actually failed at a gazelle capture. I've spent the last few weeks demeaning myself and I can take a little bit more. Can you?" Diego sat there grinning as the two tigers were squirming in their positions.

Diego began strafing to his right again as the tigers followed, keeping their delta formation, inverting the order so that he was facing the cliff's edge. Once he was in a comfortable position, he halted his steps, as did the other tigers; keeping this triangular setup made it so that they could see one another, although Diego had a slight territorial advantage with their backs to the edge of a cliff combined with his brute strength. He moved closer to the edge of the cliff knowing that the tigers could not step back any farther. With a clear advantage in power, Diego took the chance to corner both of them at once.

"I find it amazing that you've allowed someone as weak as Oscar fight alongside of you. You actually need a partner to help immobilize anything now because you can't do it yourself." Soto's rage overtook any sort of rational thoughts as he began to crouch for another pounce. Diego stood at attention, not ready to flinch from something he was able to hold down with only one out of his four paws.

"I shouldn't have to tell _you_ this, unless you've changed that much. Be rational. Do you want to live, or do you want to run through your best moments before you hit the bottom of a cliff?" Diego showed his sharp fangs before diverting his attention to a familiar voice. He angled his body in a slightly different direction to see a large, brown-complexed figure out of his peripheral vision.

"Diego! What's gotten into you!?"

"Manny?" Diego did not break his stance as more figures began to piece together within his eyesight. The possum twins were stunned watching their friend corner two tigers his size. Diego desperately wanted to move by his true family, the group that he had spent a few nights with, not worrying about the tensions of rank or the battles between humans, but he could not retreat from his spot on the peak; he was sure that this would put the rest of the herd in danger. A very weak, pain-subdued voice caught Diego's attention.

"M-manny..." She eased her stomach to the floor and laid flat on the ground. Out of impulse, Oscar bolted toward Ellie to go for an attack. Manny stepped in front of Ellie, and planted his feet to the ground below him.

"Ellie!" Diego's quick thinking had gotten out of him out of difficult situations before. With Soto still cornered, Diego finally found a way to demoralize his ex-leader one final time while testing Oscar's loyalty. Diego abruptly jumped toward Soto, with the force causing an uncontrollable roll to the cliff edge; Diego tightly grasped Soto's arms as he dangled from the mountain edge, while Diego comfortably had a surface to balance on, with total leverage.


	6. Pride

_**VI. Pride**_

Soto helplessly swayed from the edge of the cliff as Diego tightly gripped onto the dangling tiger's paws. Oscar continued accelerating in Manny's direction, who had his feet planted on the ground in front of Ellie; his body acted as a shield to protect her from anything. The impulse was quite unnecessary to Diego; Oscar did have the courage to attack in self-defense, but rarely did he ever act upon an attack without any previous order.

Prints began to lightly mark themselves on the ground closer and closer to the herd. Ellie's cries of pain changed into cries of fear as the tiger resided a few feet away from her mate.

"Manny! He won't lay a claw on you, trust me!" Diego's words struck a nerve inside of Oscar; Half Peak turned silent as his footsteps quickly halted.

"You disappear from us only to tell me how to run my life? I only follow Soto now, not you." Oscar snarled as he slowly advanced toward Manny. Diego pulled his ears back in reaction to hearing someone he considered family talk down to him. Oscar, like the rest of the former pack, was victim to a power-hungry leader, and even more so, they were all victims bound through the same way: they lost five members of their family. The resentment of hierarchy had a tight grasp over Oscar as he pushed nearer and nearer to the terrified herd.

Negotiation was an absolute last resort to Diego; the conflicts between him and Oscar were one-sided. Diego never held a grudge for the occasional bout between his brother, and forcing a battle within himself was not the most pleasant thought in Diego's mind.

_No other options. _Diego shut his eyes and prepared for the beginning of a mental battle.

"...because if he even lays a hair on you, Soto's last memories will be falling down a cliff to his death." While those words were extremely tolling on his mind, Diego somehow managed to keep his voice deep and rugged as he held his leverage from Soto's frequent kicking and struggling.

The words sent Oscar into a state of shock and panic. He remained motionless at the center of the action, distanced equally from his dangling leader to the terrified herd. Doing any sort of reaction to make himself feel better would only lead to a nightmare. Tension slowly released itself in the entire area. Despite his typically calm demeanor, a multitude of issues caused Diego to panic as well. As if Soto's constant shifting wasn't enough, he had to keep Oscar from a laboring Ellie. Even more so, family may no longer be in his future.

_What now? _Diego had never pondered life without some sort of family, although he did receive quite a bitter taste of true seclusion through the last two days. He could either return to the pack and live life knowing that he turned his back on them, or he'd return to the herd and never live his disappearance down. Regardless of his choice, he would have a fair amount of explaining to do, something that he wasn't fond of doing. The most problematic situation of them all raided Diego's mind, one that he took advantage of quite often. If he opted to go back with the herd - how would they feel about embracing him in their arms once more? Did he deserve it after childishly disappearing after one altercation? If he was going to prove himself worthy to the herd not only as a friend or guardian, but also as a member of the family, it would have to be now. Diego was ready to break the silence, but Soto took it upon himself to harm Diego in the only possible way that he could given the circumstances.

"Let me go. You never loved your family." Soto's dimly spoken words broke the silence grown from the uncomfortable predicament. He stared right into Soto's eyes as the harsh words slammed his emotions, with a still unbroken face. Ellie's cries escalated in volume as she progressed through her labor. Oscar had not moved a muscle from his position, nor had anyone else drastically shifted from where they were.

"You've..._never..."_ Diego released one of Soto's arms as his voice grew.

"...treated me like family..." Diego replaced his claws back into Soto, now eight claws on one arm now instead of the previous four claws on two. He dug deeper into Soto's skin, inflicting much more pain and drawing blood a second time, the stinging wounds being amplified by heavy drafts from the ravine below. Soto looked away, facing downward, motionless, eyes closed - as if he had been scolded like an insolent cub; it was a shocking sight to see an alpha as confident and, despite the random bouts of lunacy, wise as Soto to drop his head. It was an extremely rare occasion, to see a leader submitting, as a beta. Combine that with Soto submitting to _him_, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity sat under Diego's nose.

"Your misconstrued meaning of family nearly got us all killed!" A noteworthy mention by Diego, Soto's anger pushed him beyond the point of rationality, as venturing into a human encampment was normally a death trap to begin with.

"_My_ meaning? What about that of a traitor? I didn't _intend_ on half of our family being slain by a bunch of blood-thirsty humans! You _opted _to betray your - " A colossal roar filled the thin mountain air upon mention of betrayal, echoing for a mile; his claws went deeper through Soto's front arms, as if to satisfy a sadistic urge to torture his leader. Diego had heard the word betrayal more than enough in his own fragile mind and having it reiterated by someone he had complete control of just added an unsurpassable level of fury through his already unstable mind. A heavy shift in ambiance had occurred; the anger contained within Diego was immense, so great that it emanated out from his mind and body, out into his surroundings.

Every living mammal sitting on the peak was terrified for their life; aside from the occasional strained exhale from Ellie, it was dead silent - no breeze, no sound, just silence. Not one soul had witnessed Diego pass a breaking point. He was frustrated, with absolutely everything. The other sabers wouldn't accept his situation - he'd been seeking absolution for his past transgressions, but rather than fixing problems honorably, Diego was forced to fight. He tried to explain to his best friend that his thoughts of leaving were genuine, but rather than making a valiant effort for stopping him, he was essentially told to leave. Yet, he still found himself trying to make amends with both sides, knowing full well that they could both reject him.

Diego deeply exhaled to his reality, but stopped to realize that Ellie's screams had diminished. He couldn't move from where he was, but he was able to hear much higher pitched squealing. All of the images within his eyeshot shifted closer to each other, but slightly out of vision. However, the synchronized movement was information enough to Diego - half of the ordeal was over.

"Manny! Can Ellie move?" With the little mammoth being practically new born, Diego wanted to make their trip back as safe as possible. Issues in his life were no longer important, or at least, as important as the safety of a child from the family he once protected. His and Manny's problems were no longer a priority of his.

"Diego, she _just_ had t-"

"..._yes or no?!_"An almost desperate tone came out from Diego's mouth. If he was going to finish what he started before the herd had gotten here, he'd want to finish it without them being there. It was bad enough that they got to view a side of him they had never seen before, a fiery taste of uncontrollable rage. To his surprise, he was able to contain himself well enough to not commit something he'd regret later.

"...I...can move. We can go back to the side trail and rest there." Ellie replied; she had indirectly and unintentionally placed her life in Diego's hands - far be it for her not to trust him.

"Go. I'll catch up with you all later..." Diego paused. Now was the moment of truth to find out where his future truly belonged.

"...unless...you don't want me to." He flattened his ears.

_Redemption does not come with one single good deed._

Manny laughed at this notion and felt like he could lighten the mood. Diego's ears dropped even lower.

"Hey Diego. You are more than welcome to let my domestic life kick your adventurous self back into the family." Diego's ears slowly shifted upward, pointing directly to the skies, and a grin started to shape itself. Manny and the rest of the herd slowly veered out of site, and off of the mountain.

Happiness. A feeling so great that could change the heat of a moment within the blink of an eye. But the happiness was short lived. He was never one to care about confidentiality, but the last part of his plans were quite painful.

"Oscar, Soto has a paw laying out that I can't reach. If you want to see him alive, you'd best come over here and help out." Soto finally looked up at Diego, and stared him down, face to face. He momentarily smiled before tightening his eyes for a split second; an ounce of resentment still lingered within. Oscar reluctantly walked back toward Diego - helping Diego do anything was against his morals, but unfortunately, he'd have to go against one of his smaller morals to satisfy a greater one, his loyalty.

Oscar was about to grab Soto's other flailing paw, but his action was interrupted.

"Wait. Don't grab him just yet. Soto and I need to have a chat."

Oscar very badly wanted to pull Soto onto solid ground, but he was at the mercy of whatever Diego wanted to do. A snide comment, a malicious action, wouldn't pass - Soto would be dead, and Oscar wouldn't do too much better; he was forced to maintain a calm demeanor.

"Don't lie to me, Soto. Why did you take me in? And if you say one word, Oscar, you'll kill your leader. Not me."

"Because as small as you were compared to your...buddies..."

"You mean brothers." Oscar's face shifted toward Diego's, giving a heavy glare, his thoughts filled with malice. Diego was no longer a brother to him, not even a friend.

"...you're no longer family."

"...and you're no longer a worthy leader. Drop the insults and talk to me with at least an ounce of respect, you waste of fur." Diego had no need to hold back anymore. It felt good to hold a position of total leadership for once in his lifetime.

"Go on. As small as I was compared to my _brothers..._" Diego persistently inquired about his past, some of which he vaguely remembered for no particular reason at all.

"Being the runt that you were, I give you credit - you were a great fighter."

"I was a runt who brought more kills than you ever could. You never did it yourself, you left me to do your dirty work." Diego proceeded to rant above Soto's voice, something that not too long ago, he was unable to do.

"...and you did a gr-"

"And you sent a smaller family member, rather than leading your attack as a group. Sabers don't travel alone...no intelligent mammals travel alone. Will I ever get the truth from you?" Diego's ears pricked up as he comprehended Soto's true plans, and he began to snarl, front teeth slowly appearing.

"You wanted me gone from the get-go." The growl continued to intensify; Oscar peeled his ears down knowing that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

"I, unlike you - don't try to kill my family."

"You tried to kill me." Diego was going to continue, before he remembered something that was said in his dream two nights ago.

_"A short lesson that you, a naive mammal, will never appreciate...never trust a saber."_

"I have one more question before I let you go away from here." Diego's snarl slowly diminished. Soto, as a leader, was able to look at death with immense strength, even as a child. His strengths were certainly flawed though, as hanging off of a cliff caused him major distress, enough so that he breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the sentence. Diego retained the words said from his leader in a dream - and asked Soto one final thing before opting to leave.

"What did you_ really_ think of me when I was by your side?"

"You were a great soldier. And nothing more." Soto's voice grew deeper, as if trying to make a final point before being pulled up.

"And nothing more. Nothing more than an expendable strategist, and a predator, one who would guarantee you success." Diego raised his back legs, still gripping Soto, furious as ever, but holding a great composure.

"You were a failure with me by your side..." Soto's well-being was part of Diego's conscience no longer; he lifted his right paw off of Soto's still hanging paw.

"...and you're a failure without me." Oscar and Soto roared as Diego yanked his other paw out from his skin, and descended to the valley long below the mountain. A fully expected retaliative lunge from Oscar was directed to Diego, and all Diego needed to do, yet again, was a mere sidestep. Oscar skidded closer and closer, turning around just before reaching the cliff's edge, and sliding off, hanging off at the edge of the mountain. Diego rushed as quick as he could to Oscar's dangling body, using this opportunity to make amends.

"Oscar!" He threw his body to the floor, digging his sharp claws to the floor for stronger balance.

"Help me and I can pull you up." The fighting had lasting far too long. Oscar wasn't at all part of Diego's problems and now was the time to prove himself, he truly didn't want anybody to get hurt at Half Peak in their last encounter and Diego now had the opportunity to give his side of the story.

"So you can do to me what-" A head loomed closer to Oscar's as he began talking; an angry tiger who had the strength to subdue him was giving the option to live and for some reason, Oscar continued to reject any sort of sympathy.

"Is your life worth living at all to you? If not, let go and drop to your death for all I care. Tell me now and I'll help you commit to your action. Choose the _correct_ one_._" Diego's voice turned cold; being talked down to time and time again was an old and tiresome game for him, and also one that he didn't wish to, or need to play any longer. He was guaranteed a place to stay once more with who he truly considered family, what would be the point to cause more mental anguish?

Oscar looked down below him; the distance of the fall was long enough for him to go through his life memories and back. His sharp vision was strong enough to see his leader's motionless body at the base of the ravine, and while he had loyalty toward his leader, death was not a part of his immediate plans. He looked back up toward Diego, who was still only a few inches from his head, and nodded in agreement. Oscar brought one paw up; in his mind, he was praying that Diego's strength was enough to bring his thin build. For the first time in his life, Oscar found trust in Diego. Even through all of the emotional hell he put his brother through, Diego still somehow found it within himself to keep Oscar alive.

"I've got ya - give me your other one now. Do it quick so I can hold on." Oscar was somewhat reluctant; while he did feel like Diego was genuinely trying to save him, there was a small voice telling him that giving Diego both paws was a death trap. But it was reality now, he couldn't deny a chance for his life to be saved at the slight risk of imminent death. He threw his other front paw to Diego, who grabbed it instantly. Diego paused for a moment, scaring Oscar for a brief moment. Thankfully, by the time he'd realized the fear, he was already off of the cliff edge and on solid ground.

"I'm going to make this quick." Oscar stared confused, still unsure as to Diego's motives for saving his life.

"I don't know where this resentment came from toward you and me, and I don't know why, but you need to move away from the past. Soto is dead, and whatever happened to Lenny and Zeke can stay live in your damn thoughts for all I care. You are now where you want to be, whether you believe it or not." Oscar had just witnessed his leader's death, and now had to hear about his somewhat unforgiving past as well.

"And what about you?"

"I'm going back with the mammoths and the rest of the party. If you choose to take the pack over, you're now the leader. You have what you've wanted. You can deny it all you want, but Soto's leadership was absolutely atrocious after we lost half of our family. A leader needs to be able to deal with hardship, and I'm looking at someone who seems to be coping quite well with a death of a close member." A wide-eyed stare took shape in Oscar's face; it was the first time in his life that he had received a compliment from Diego. By the time he had figured out what to say, he turned to see Diego, far off in the distance, heading south, away from the hellhole that caused his problems.

_"That Diego...he's a good kid."_


	7. Tiger's Heart

Author's Note: There is a lot of dialogue in this chapter, particularly in the second half. As long as you've been paying attention within the story, you should be able to figure out who is chatting with who. Thanks to you all for sticking with me to the very end!  


* * *

_**VII. Tiger's Heart**_

A dim sunlight seeped onto Diego's body and into his hazel eyes as he slowly paced downhill to reunite with the rest of the herd. A warm, southern breeze gently shifted Diego's hair forward - the area around Diego was extremely calm, with a soothing, natural ambiance; for the first time in a while, he was walking tall, full of pride, and taking in an indistinct feeling, one that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Acceptance.

He risked his own life to keep these animals protected. A fine line between care and love, had just been passed. Emotions had not been a prevalent experience for him - physically being the strongest tiger meant dealing the most destruction when it came to devastating a group of helpless prey. Those days were over. Diego no longer needed to find peace within himself - no more dreadful searches within his past, and his problems with Soto no longer existed. Oscar's former resentment toward him couldn't exist, leadership was a much too large of a plate to fit with a side of memories.

Possibly the most surprising of changes was the increase in physical strength, potentially due to another run in with the face of death. Perhaps that was when life's meaning struck his mind. Diego spat at death, within a few inches of his face, and lived to tell another story. Whether or not he should have perished in that catastrophic predicament revolving around aquatics had no meaning; life had a stronger, but more pleasant path, meant for the saber. The puzzle of the missing saber was solved in all forms: he finally had his opportunity to reunite with the family who loved him the most, he finally was able to fill the pieces of their lives after picking up pieces of his own. Not only that, but the sole responsibility of his previous depression had been eliminated - Soto, who left him in emotional shambles, was no longer a live image his life, only a distant memory; shortly ago, the mention of his presence brought his face in the direction of the floor below him, and caused him to break - a rarity. But now, his death, seemed to bring peace to Diego, although not for the total disintegration of his leadership and morale, but more so because the unpleasant reminiscences of his betrayal disappeared along with his life.

_Well, this is it._

The large river was within eye-shot, the familiar trail wrapping around it. Diego realized that he had been gradually slowing down, as the scenery around him was lit only by the stars of the clear night sky. Night travel, while normally dangerous alone, never brought fear to Diego; unchanged terrain served as an even stronger reinforcement to not only his, but also the rest of the herd's safety. He found himself wondering where the herd had relocated to, as his mind didn't quite process the exact location they mentioned when his main priority was to keep everyone safe.

As he examined the trail and all of the forest around it, a soft, but noticeable light filled the darkness. Instinctively, Diego's ears pointed up from their usually flattened position - he cracked a short grin before following the source. As he followed the trail southward toward the light, he glanced over to his right to see the river that nearly did him in, as harmless and innocent looking as ever, a formerly open coffin in disguise. His grin continued on his face as he moved closer and closer to the light, the remnants of burning bark tickled Diego's nose. He was close.

The ego of a saber, the only entity stronger than pride - Diego's stare remained directed to the body of water, his confidence beyond measurability knowing that he survived a run-in with a true phobia not once, but twice.

_I told ya, I wasn't your prey. _

Diego chuckled before shifting his attention away from the river, running into a patch of brown strands before regaining full attention on the light. The contact was soon complemented with a spontaneous, but quickly suppressed roar - quiet enough to not compromise their position but long enough to startle anything around him. The source of light, a campfire, was a mere few feet away; he was back where he wanted to be, albeit scaring a majority of the herd. Manny, Sid, and the two possums stared attentively at Diego, unaware of the meaning around the brief outburst.

"Ahem...sorry." To Diego's surprise, they fell to the mercy of fatigue; no questions asked involving his past, no scolding for causing intense amounts of stress during Ellie's pregnancy, and no information about the baby. Lack of information and understanding were the issues behind his previous distress, but it didn't make a difference to him now. Explanations were later business, all that mattered was he'd kept those he cared about safe. The only matter of the present, was to rest.

Diego pressed his right side against the thin layer of dirt below him, with his four legs lightly but comfortably outstretched from his somewhat worn and battered torso, thinking in amazement about all of the events that occurred to him within the course of a few days. His eyes began to lower and dim; the campfire's glow began to fade darker and darker.

_"Good n--"_ Diego couldn't finish a thought before being nudged by a thick, brown trunk.

"Hey, Manny. I'm sor--"

"I'm not Manny, tough guy. You have it in you to take a short walk?" Ellie's incredible resilience left Diego stunned and brought him to his feet. It had only been a few hours since the miracle delivery and already, Ellie was on her feet and able to move with fluidity.

"Eh, well, what about Manny?"

"What about him?" Diego's head dropped in response to Ellie's sarcastic question. His sudden disappearance took form as a thought in his mind once more; rehashing the past normally would have proven ineffective for mental harm. While they hadn't talked much, Ellie was able to pick up on the release of sadness.

"Only wanted to make you laugh, bad timing, huh?" Diego raised his head to Ellie's in surprise once again; most animals never had the chance to view a saber's rugged face before feeling their life drain away through two sharp canines through the neck, and even saber on saber interaction led to an occasional brawl or fight. But of all animals, a female mammoth, one who hadn't experienced any sort of offending attack up close, was able to pick up remorse from a tiger. Oddly enough, Diego smiled after blankly staring at Ellie. He had his doubts, but Ellie hadn't ever directly talked to him before, and curiosity had him wondering why she would want him over anyone else to talk about something.

"Where did you have in mind?"

"There's a cliff up ahead where we can look at the lake. It's not too far from here." Laughter began spewing from out of Diego as confusion began to take hold of Ellie. He knew that Ellie had no idea why he was laughing; he found it within himself to breathe for a second to reply:

"You'll hear why, soon enough." Diego propped up on all fours and dragged himself up the uneven terrain, smiling the along the way.

* * *

Diego kept a close eye on Ellie, embracing nature as much as moonlight would allow. He remembered Manny's blindness at night without any sort of natural or artificial light; the dim light was insufficient. After a short distance, he slightly increased his speed to catch up with Ellie.

"I'll keep in front, since you can't see too well in the dark."

"Manny's the one that is night-blind. This is why I brought you up here - there's so little we know about each other."

They had reached the peak of the trail, staring out into the skies; the light of the moon painted images of the dimly lit tree tops, the stagnant river acting as nature's large canvas. Neither of them had the chance to true appreciate the gift of a serene environment, and even now, the main focus was each other, not the tranquil surroundings. Diego dropped himself to the ground, resting it against his partially bruised chest.

"Manny told me a lot about you, Diego."

"Like...what?" Diego did abscond himself for a while, and while he was depressed and saddened by it, he was curious to hear how everyone took to his disappearance, and even more so, how Ellie would go about telling the story of how they found him; he had after all, been gone a whole three days, which was three days longer than necessary.

"Like..."

_Argh, not again... _

Diego stared at Ellie, pushing back his emotions, trying to prevent any sort of crack in his normal behavior. Ellie's hesitation overwhelmed Diego's mind; drawing the past, even to Ellie - someone he hadn't even communicated with directly, still inflicted massive amounts of anguish. Diego's instincts were typically without error; he felt the bitter edges of his past trying to cram itself in the empty sections of his memory after he had to strive so hard to push them out, and reliving them to explain his abnormal behavior was beyond his comfort.

"...how you nearly got yourself killed for Manny." Diego was speechless. The memories clawing on Diego's mind almost immediately dissipated; he was able to reminiscence back to one of his honorable points of his life, and while incredibly close to his betrayal, it was no longer a necessity to remember. Rational thinking put him back at ease; no matter how painful his life used to be, it would never fall below that point.

"Well, he fell into a river of lava to save me. If it wasn't for a geyser sending the ice below him back onto cold land, we wouldn't be here talking."

"Wait, that actually happened?" Ellie recalled telling Manny that she didn't believe for one second that's how things turned out. Not everyone could be lying to her, especially not Diego, who had absolutely no reason to hold anything back.

"He told you about that too, I'm guessing..." Diego paused for a moment, before letting off a small chuckle. "...that would be a pretty big highlight of his life."

"About as big as him being the father of little Ellie."

A night of memories that brought relief was a very welcoming feeling to both of them after many restless days and nights attempting to pick up any sorts of missing pieces. Diego was never used to fending for himself while having so many emotions and feelings, as if he took a route down a mesmerizing path of passion; at the same time, Ellie rarely took the chance to thank Diego for his help with everything from saving her "brothers" to keeping them alive when the ground collapsed under the entire herd's feet. Diego's quick thinking had saved them on more than one occasion; Ellie was a quiet, but quite observant spectator to everyone's life, quite possibly the reason as to why she empathized with every soul within her vision.

She took a look at Diego, who was openly staring and seemingly enjoying a no-worries lifestyle; the second-nature, adventurous lifestyle that he once hoped for no longer crossed his mind.

"Diego, I'm not going to sit here and say that I haven't heard about your past."

Unlike the first mention of his past, Diego remained motionless as he viewed the beauty of the horizon in its entirety, again preparing himself for yet another mouthful about his past mistakes.

"I know you planned on having Manny killed, at first. But..."

"...that _wasn't_ the plan!" A loud roar canceled out the silence around them. Ellie's head went away from Diego's and back out to the river; for the first time, she truly felt threatened by him. Diego lifted himself up and began to hastily walk back and forth.

Ellie began to follow Diego's body back and forth as he paced a small area repeatedly.

"I never wanted to kill Manny. Even before he saved my life, I could not think normally knowing that I was getting closer and closer to where I was forced to go. I didn't even want to pick up that scrawny little infant knowing that it would get mutilated by...never mind."

"By who? You don't have to stop for me, it's not like I know your past, hun." She was aware that the past would not entirely release and reveal itself unless it was forced out.

"I just...alright. My leader, Soto. He told me that if I didn't get that baby, I'd be offering myself up as a replacement. What was I supposed to do?"

"I hear ya, but, why cou--" Heavy footsteps shook the ground below them; the still-venting Diego walked in the direction of the sound, crouched and growling, ready to strike at the unknown. The color of what was behind him became clearer as it grew larger, until he noticed the large brown figure a few yards from him. They both met eyes, until the charging mass came to a quick halt.

"Diego! What did you do with Ellie?!" Out of the darkness, Sid and the possum twins came rolling off of Manny's large, nearly invisible head, as the baby mammoth giggled while sliding off of his thick trunk.

"Oh, it's you." He lifted himself to stand normally again with no danger in sight.

"That's all you have to say for taking Ellie alone? 'Oh, it's you.' Have you cared about anyone but yourself lately?" Diego was shocked. Of all people, Manny was the one he confided to most with his problems; he came to Manny when contemplating leaving the first time, not to mention there was some missing appreciation for keeping him alive a long time ago.

"Now hold on." Ellie took position in front of Diego, a role reversal that had never in his life happened before. The protector was now the protected, from any sort of impending attack that could even be pondered.

"I can't believe you would sit here and give Diego grief after all he's been through! He's saved your hide more than once and you still don't have even one ounce of trust for him?"

Diego took another stare at Ellie, this time, ears up and smiling. For all of the times that he'd taken the proverbial bullet for the herd, the favor was finally repaid in his direction, by the least likely of candidates. An awkward feeling it was, to see a saber emotionally grow on a mammoth, even more so a female who already had a mate. As if the oddities hadn't stacked up enough, Manny's aggression toward the person he missed not too long ago was quite harsh.

"She's right, Manny. Ellie hasn't lied to you once." Sid also sided with the still-confused saber.

"The fact that he took her up here alone is enough for me to be nervous, you know that." Manny's glare did not ease whatsoever. The closest thing to a physical battle within the herd was a long while ago, back when he had Diego pinned to a boulder with his tusks just before entering Half Peak.

"Yeah, and the fact of the matter is you like to assume stuff. I brought Diego up here, just before he thought about sleeping, for your information. And what of it if he so happened to bring me up here anyway?"

"You what!? Did you forget that you _just_ had a baby?" Manny's glare finally broke away from Diego and shifted straight to his mate, who was irritated with the sudden instance of anger.

"Well, _I_ thought that _you_ could handle yourself for longer than five seconds without having a panic attack but obviously that's not the case either!"

"Hey, take it e--" A failed attempt to intervene an inevitable argument; Diego vaguely recalled the last argument Manny and Ellie had before crossing the geyser-filled fields.

"And I wouldn't have to handle myself if you took more responsibility for a change!"

"Sure, because me wondering about how Diego's been feeling the past couple of days means I'm irresponsible!"

"You left me alone with the baby!"

"Guys..." Sitting there without a say as to what happens was an old and tiresome game to Diego; just when he'd thought the tension was relieved from every direction, he becomes witness to yet another verbal outburst. He didn't care how it started, it was going to end.

"You're one half of the parenting in this family!"

"And you're the other half! What does th--"

A colossal roar came from Diego, echoing deep into the forests, causing all of the arguments, the tension, the anger and rage, all to be brought to him. By the time Diego had realized how much power was contained within his own little blowout, the herd had taken a few steps away from him; the possum twins laid motionless on their backs as the little baby mammoth's eyes opened wider, but somehow kept from crying.

Diego looked at Crash and Eddie, whose eyes were shut, tongues hanging out from their mouths, and flat on the floor; he shook his head back and forth horizontally in disapproval. No matter what he did, he had the ability to instantly strike fear to anything within his sight. As normal as that was for a saber, it was far less than satisfying to Diego. All that he wanted was to seamlessly meld with the herd so that it felt like family. With the entire herd being his audience, he was finally ready to talk.

"Stop. I've heard more than enough arguing and drama for one day, and you two aren't going to instigate anymore. Now, get up. I'm not going to hurt you." He turned toward the possum twins and spooned them up with his right paw, ending up right behind Sid, petrified.

"Do you have any idea how many mistakes I've done in this past week, Manny?" Manny did not respond, as his inquiring mind was curious.

"I'll take your lack of a response as a no, but since you're awfully quiet, I'll just talk until I have nothing more to say." Diego began to pace back and forth again, making the rest of the herd uneasy once more.

"I could have sent the rest of the pack away from Half-Peak, then I could have went with you to take that baby to the father, just like we did a while back. I would have avoided a near death for the first time, and we would have still been together. But no, I had to take you guys into an ambush because I was naive and followed the likes of a lunatic."

The lull continued as Diego proceeded through his rant of his past.

"Then, I made the mistake by getting to Half-Peak and nearly killing my leader. I was second in command, a beta, which I worked my tail off to get to, only to turn my back on him and leave."

Manny broke the rant by gathering the strength and bravery to speak to the already agitated tiger.

"If you had so much that you wanted to talk about, why didn't you bring it up when you stood with me and told me you wanted to leave the first time?" Diego stopped pacing, finally at ease knowing that Manny was treating him with actual respect by talking with him, face-to-face, fully attentive.

For now.

"I wasn't in the right mindset, you know, because sabers are supposed to let a gazelle get away from their reach."

"So? You made one mistake. Big deal."

"That mistake started it all, Manny. I was way out of shape and it made me think back to how my leader, Soto, and I would go and team up with the rest of our pack to hunt. It brought me so far down, you wouldn't be able to imagine."

The herd coincided nearer to Diego, and opened their ears as wide as they could to fill up all of Diego's past life.

"Hey buddy, you can tell us anything." Sid moved over to put his claws lightly on Diego's left paw, who gave his presence recognition with a suppressed smile, which quickly diminished. The fear had subsided.

"These last couple of days were an eyeopener to me. I was overwhelmed with the barrage of memories and emotions coming from the past. In fact, I'm not sure if I want to talk about this next part in front of Manny."

"He won't do anything. I won't let him." Ellie went out of her way to defend Diego earlier, but a second time? A clear, mutual respect, emerged between Diego and Ellie, even after talking for so shortly. No one had previously made Diego delve into the past, and while he regretted doing so in his mind not too long ago, he wasn't sure why. The venting allowed him to share his thoughts to everyone who wondered, and gave him the chance to steamroll them out, once and for all.

This was his moment.

"Manny, what I'm about to tell you...when this happened, I couldn't figure out what to do with myself." His paw ended up on his face, inching downward as he desperately tried to come with a reasonable way to break the news of his first night, alone.

"You know, when we took a break on this trail before meeting up with you on Half-Peak, I told them about all of the things you've done, all of the good things. Ask a certain sloth how they were feeling while you were gone, and you'll see how much we...missed you."

Sid quietly laughed before dignifying Manny's statement with a response. "I think the teardrops might still be wet in the dirt. I don't need to lie."

_Sid? Crying for me? _

Diego was at a loss of words. For as long as Diego had traveled with these mammals, sitting through their occasional antics and helping them prevail through disastrous situations, there never was a time where he was entirely certain about his appreciation in the eyes of his comrades. Finding out that he had anything who shed a tear for his being missing made his mind cave in with emotions; it was almost surreal to see so much care towards him even after playing a disappearing act on the ones who truly cared about him.

"Diego, don't hold back. It's the reason why I brought you up here in the first place."

"Well, when I left, I was extremely weak, and tired. I couldn't sleep, or eat, without thinking about Soto. I thought it would be better for me to explore on my own for a bit, to get back to my normal lifestyle. But I didn't get far before my body gave in...I had a dream. And, well...let's just say, had what happened in my dream, actually happened, none of us would be alive." Manny's lack of an imagination left him unsure as to what Diego was implying.

"What are you talking about?"

"I..." Diego felt himself struggling through his conscience, his chest heating up from the intensity of his heart picking up.

"Come on, Diego. You shouldn't be so afraid to talk with us." Ellie had worked so hard break the extremely powerful grip of shame and guilt from Diego's mind so that he could live a normal life.

"...I killed Manny, and Sid, at Half-Peak, and Soto took the baby." Everyone gasped out of shock, but Diego trudged on - if he could get inflict this much damage to the herd with his thoughts, it would be to his advantage to take care of the rest of them.

"I woke up from that dream, soaked and cold. I wanted to say that it rained that night, but when I woke up in the day, I woke up a few steps away from a dead gazelle, whose blood had not mixed. It was a fresh kill."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You didn't kill the gazelle? I found the gazelle and Sid found footprints right next to it."

Thankfully for Diego, the herd's change of focus acted as proof that they truly in fact had absolved him. With the most difficult thought disappearing in the haze of confusion amongst the herd, he found the strength to charge through.

"I killed _a_ gazelle, but not that one. I hid the remains of the my kill so that I couldn't be traced. You guys might find this funny, but, we were following the same tracks, because those weren't my paws laying in the dirt. I take care to cover my tracks. I followed the tracks all the way up to this very trail, and then just kept going north from here."

"You're still Mister Ubertracker, eh?"

"Yes, Manny. And I'm still tigey-wigey to Sid too, as much as I don't want to be." Sid stepped away from Diego to see the tiger's face, then playfully squinted his eyes, causing both Manny and Diego to crack a grin, while Crash and Eddie still remained silent, still somewhat threatened by Diego's outburst. All jokes aside, Ellie had been moderating the conversation, and while the verbal confrontations between her and Manny were the last thing she had wanted to engage in, she accomplished what she wanted for the night.

"Sorry about telling you all to leave at Half Peak. I had some personal business to tend to, and the most important thing to me at that point was getting you out of there to keep you all safe. It's all over with now."

"I'm guessing you talked about the past with the other two tigers after we left?" Despite all of the past that Diego laid out, Ellie was still unsure as to how tigers went about discussing issues amongst each other. Little did she know that there was an ounce of hate behind the ton of remorse from Diego to Soto.

"I talked with one of the tigers, my brother, Oscar. And I'm not sugarcoating what happened to the one hanging on the cliff, I let go of that idiot as fast as I could. That...was my pack leader. That, was Soto." Manny and Ellie retained stares toward Diego, mouths gaping wide open after hearing the previous remorse caused by his thought to be missing presence.

"But, you just said..."

"Ellie, I know. I said it was a mistake for nearly killing him. But I didn't just turn my back on him, I turned it on my entire pack. Oscar and I, there was always some sort of resentment between us, but it was always him that showed it. And while he always seemed to hate my guts, I still thought that he handled himself better than Soto ever could have after half of our pack got murdered. Soto caused me so much pain, and I never knew why. Even now, I still don't know why the pain even existed, but the pain is no longer there."

"Jeez, Diego. Had you talked to me about this after you said you wanted to leave for the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess, and you wouldn't be so frustrated with yourself." Diego sat for a moment, considering how he would have fared with the stress.

"You know, I honestly think this was for the better. I mean, I put myself through absolute hell, but I achieved a few things on this little journey. For one, I got to see what a life of adventure was, and while I would give most things up for that kind of lifestyle, a family isn't one of those things. Not only that, but after hearing Soto's vile words towards me, it made me realize how well I fulfilled his dreams." Manny went into his own state of dejection; all he wanted was to keep his family safe, in turn, almost losing not only the one who simply needed a place in the herd, but also the one who had now saved each member of the herd at least once.

"Ellie, take everyone back to our resting spot. Diego and I really need to clear a few things up."

"Yeah, you wish. I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm tired and I think Diego is the only one around here who would want to eat meat anyway. Maybe I can take little Ellie with me?" Sid took the step for a challenge. As small, silly, and confused as Sid was, he always fit the eyes of a to-be parent; being just the right size and having the perfect demeanor was a nice plus, but a true parent understood that watching a child was more than simply keeping an eye on it. Sid, didn't have a child, or even siblings to learn this from.

"It's been quiet around here, I think even Crash and Eddie would be able to watch over her. Manny?" Ellie took it upon herself to test Manny's trust in everyone else; in a situation where there's practically no danger, there wasn't a reason to decline this kind of offer, even though it _was_ Sid.

"Here's your chance, Sid. Show to me that you can actually do some _real_ work for once."

"Yes! I won't let ya' down, promise. Come on, little Ellie - Uncle Sid is going to give you some light and let you play with the twins until mommy gets back. Let's go." Sid took the hill downward with the possum twins jumped on his shoulders, each side enough of a platform for one another to stand. After the tone of the footsteps died in volume, Manny turned his attention back to Diego.

"I didn't ever want you to leave the herd, couldn't you tell alone by how I reacted? I mean, I get angry because I can't let go. It's one of the reasons why I was reluctant to let anyone follow me when we first met. I couldn't get rid of Sid, and quite frankly, I'm glad that I couldn't, because look at him now. I trust him enough to watch over my daughter, for a short time, so that we _can_ have this talk."

"It's alright." Diego's response, while short, was filled with as much sincerity as his body can possibly fill.

"We never talked, but I was sure you had a lot to talk about, ever since I talked to Manny and told him that somethin' was bothering you. This is a lot more than somethin' though." And even though it was already said, Ellie had to keep mentioning the truth, that it was her idea - it wasn't necessary to explicitly say she told him so, but she knew that bringing it up would cause just enough inner frustration to prevent him from doing it once more.

"Diego, we're lucky to have someone as strong as you here. The past few days haven't sat well with any of us. We all want you back here, and it seems like you care for us enough to have saved our lives again. I'm not going to sit here and act like I know what goes through your head anymore, though. Do you want to come back?" Manny's question was legitimate; with the past few hours, Diego's behavior was more and more out of line from his normal behavior, but at the same time, he was more sound with himself.

Footsteps again became audible. Manny and Ellie sat at attention while Diego pricked his ears up to hone in on the sound. Before they could pick it up, little Ellie popped into the area; Sid, Crash, and Eddie were two steps behind.

"She likes looking at the water. It's not my fault." Sid pointed to little Ellie as she took another glimpse at the river ahead. Manny smiled as he lovingly gazed at his beautiful daughter, but his attention was broken.

"I'm not leaving. Life of adventure, is right here." Diego, who had been viewing the open skies, was somewhat startled by Sid, who was hugging one of his paws. Manny was overrun with emotions, but he managed to stay composed well enough to smile and nothing more. Ellie, who was responsible for the whole reunion, although not entirely intended on being as it turned out, had a somewhat smaller smile. But deep inside, she knew, that her thoughts were in fact correct.

"Come on, everybody, let's get back to where we really belong. Little Ellie here hasn't even seen the playground I have for her!" Manny was anxious to leave from the unknowns; while he had Diego on his side, who would surely protect them all, he now knew not to take his presence for granted.

"Hey, Diego, why exactly did you laugh when I told you that we were meeting up on this cliff, anyway?" Ellie looked at Diego, who returned a grin, and spoke his mind one final time before departing back to where he should be.

"...because I made the water my prey." Ellie turned towards the path, shaking her head to the side. And all Diego could do, was smile.

He was finally going home.

_I missed you guys._

_**[fin]**_


End file.
